The End
by Tracie
Summary: My tribute to the Animorphs series...one of the Animorphs' lives is finally over. Major spoilers for Ellimist Chronicles, and possibly the end of the series.


12/20/2K  
  
Author's note:  
  
This is a really long author's note. If you want to skip the big part of it and just go on to the fic, the important thing is this: This fic has major spoilers for the Ellimist Chronicles and possibly the end of the Animorphs series. It's basically the prologue and epilogue of the Ellimist Chronicles from one of the Animorphs' point of view. Mild profanity.  
If you want to read the rest of the author's note, go ahead.  
  
I wrote this late at night - I felt a sudden inspiration by a very old file that I found on my hard drive. This contains major spoilers for the Ellimist Chronicles (If you haven't read it, read it. It's a great book beyond belief) and possibly for the end of the Animorphs series. If you haven't heard, one of the Animorphs is going to die, and it's rumored to be Jake within the Animorph community. Also if you haven't heard, the Day of Reckoning (the day that Animorphs was announced to end) was December 1st, 2000, and the end is going to be book #54. Go to Morphz.com for details if this is the first that you've heard of this.  
  
I personally am very, very sad. I forget if one of the members of the Animorphs community said something along the lines of the following, or if one of my parents or friends in real life said this, or if I said this, but whoever said it, it's worth saying again.  
Animorphs' ending is sort of like death. I know it's coming and can't be stopped. And even though I'm really sad...come to think of it, the end *shouldn't* be stopped, because nothing should last forever. Look at the Baby-Sitters Club - that series started in August of 1985 and is just ending now. It was a hit in the beginning, and the author kept stretching it on and on and on...fifteen years later, it's finally ending. Frankly, in its condition now, BSC bites.  
  
Animorphs started to go in what I affectionately like to call the Era of the Ghostwriters. The Era was about books #30-#43 or so; when it started to get boring, when K. A. Applegate was writing Everworld instead of Animorphs and turned the series over to ghostwriters. Animorphs had just started to get exhausted. But instead of dragging it on, K. A. did the right thing - she decided to end it.   
  
On the Day of Reckoning, I was devastated. But I'm glad.  
  
Animorphs has been such a huge part of my life. It's the cause of the best friendships that I'll ever have. It's the reason I had those friends in the first place...and when I hit a period of severe depression and became suicidal about two years back, it was those friends that helped keep me alive, maybe more than they'll ever know. In a weird way...Animorphs saved my life.  
  
Goodbye, Animorphs. You will hold a special place forever in my heart.  
  
I have poured out every emotion, every shred of my fanfiction-writing ability into this file.  
  
This fanfic is my tribute to the Animorphs series.  
  
Thank you, Katherine Applegate.  
  
- Tracie  
  
*  
  
"The End"  
  
  
  
I don't know how I got here.   
  
All I know is that eventually, it will end.  
  
It has to end.  
  
Walking into that construction site was a mistake. A huge mistake.  
  
Not that we could even begin to guess the reason why.  
  
But now, we know all too well.  
  
The battles. The nightmare-filled nights. Barely awake at school. So tired that my skin felt like it was vibrating, on way too many occasions.  
  
Why am I the leader? Because Marco said so.  
  
Why did Marco say so? I don't know.  
  
I just know that I want to go home...I want to go home...to a place I've never been...  
  
I'm laying here on the ground in tiger morph. Dying. I'm too weak to demorph. And even if I could, I'd be killed in an instant. The Yeerks are ruthless now. They don't even want our bodies anymore. We've caused so much damage...they just want us dead.  
  
This is the _hirac delest_ of Jake Cooper...  
  
Pain! A sudden, searing pain throughout my whole body...red fills my entire field of vision...  
  
But suddenly...  
  
I'm no longer laying in a pool of my own tiger blood, in a deadly battle. But surrounded by the threads of space-time, the multi-dimensional place that only one being has ever brought us to before...  
  
The Ellimist.  
  
I can feel his presence. I can almost see him, not with my eyes, but in some strange, deeper way.  
  
"Ellimist?"  
**  
Yes?**  
  
I pause. If I ask the ultimate question that I want to know the answer to...that all of us want to know the answer to...if I ask, will he even answer me?  
  
I decide to try.  
  
"Was..." I pause for a second, gathering all the courage that I have left in my shattered, beaten consciousness. "Was it all worth it? The pain, the despair, the fear that we've all gone through...the horror of violence suffered...the corrupting horror of violence inflicted...Ellimist, was it all worth it?"  
**  
I cannot answer that. The battle is not yet done.**  
  
He can't answer that? He's practically God to us, bending time, bending space, bending reality as we know it, and he doesn't know if it's worth it?  
  
Why. Why, why, why? Why are we made to suffer through this? Why is it *us?* The battles, the murders, the nightmares, why us! We're just kids!  
  
And this...this being...sits and watches us. Sits and watches us suffer day in and day out. Saying that he can't interfere, then interfering as much as he damn well pleases. Who does this Ellimist think he is?!  
  
"Who are you?! Who are you to play games with us? You appear, you disappear, you play with us, you use us, who are you, _what_ are you? I deserve an answer."  
**  
Yes, you do.**  
  
... ...I do?  
**  
To this question I will give you all the answer I know. And when you know me, you will ask another question. And I will answer that question, too. And then...**  
  
...I'll die.  
  
*  
  
A sudden burst of knowledge. Visions. Azure Level, Seven Spar, Extension Two, Down-Messenger, Forty-one.  
  
Step into my lair, said the _dreth_ to the _chorkant_.  
  
MCQ3. Airfoils.  
  
Attack. Death. Escape.  
  
Aguella ...  
  
Exploring space. Father...more death. Unreal life that might as well be death.  
  
Escape once more. Build onto my body. I'm more machine than body now...  
  
Travel. Watch. Learn. Spread life, beautiful life, into the universe.  
  
...Crayak.  
  
Battle. Run.  
  
Normal space. Z-space. Black hole!  
  
Ketran body, compressed to the size of a single atom...  
  
Suddenly, a multi-dimensional existence! Size has no meaning. Alive without synapses to fire, without food to devour, without limbs to control, seeing without eyes, tasting without tongue, moving with no wings or pods or engines for power...  
  
Crayak will be here soon.  
  
"Then let us play a game, Crayak."  
  
"There will have to be rules."  
  
"Yes, there will have to be rules."  
  
"And a winner?"  
  
"That, too, though it will take millions of years."  
  
Crayak smiled his hideous smile. "I'm not going anywhere."  
  
*  
**  
Now you know who I am. What I am.**  
  
I am in shock. The Ellimist...he's not omnipotent. He's...he's...like us. Like me.  
  
"Yeah. You were a kid. Like me in some ways, a kid who got in way too deep and couldn't get back out."  
**  
A kid.**  
  
"You were trapped. You still are. I've been trapped."  
**  
Yes.**  
  
I can ask another question...but what do I want to know?...  
  
"Was I one of your game pieces? Were all six of us just game pieces?"  
  
I am afraid to learn the answer. What if he answers yes? Or...what if he answers no?  
**  
I did not cause you to be one of the six. You are...you were...a happy accident. An unwitting contribution from the human race to its own survival.**  
  
So that's it. That's how this happened. Yelling, screaming, cursing at the Ellimist late at night...and he didn't do this to us.  
  
I am going to die. There's nothing I can do to change that. I've done all I can do for the planet, for the human race...for the Animorphs. Cassie. Rachel. Tobias. Marco. Ax. They're going to have to fight without my guidance.  
  
I believe in them. They can do it without me, or we wouldn't have gotten this far. But...  
  
"You said I could ask one more question."  
**  
Yes.**  
  
"I can't ask if we win, I can't ask if it will all turn out okay."  
**  
I don't know those answers.**  
  
"Okay, then answer this, Ellimist: Did I...did I make a difference? My life, and my...my death...was I worth it? Did my life really matter?"  
  
Once again...I am scared to learn the answer. The logical part of my mind says yes, of course, look at all I've been through, look at all we've done...but what if...what if by some freak chance...  
**  
Yes. You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.**  
  
...is that what I want to hear?  
  
Yes.  
  
Maybe...maybe eventually...the sleepless nights, the pillows and sheets drenched in fear-sweat, the stomach-turning horrors of seeing my body warp and shift and appear and disappear and degenerate and manipulate itself in ways that no human body should never be manipulated, all that all of us have gone through...eventually, maybe it might be worth something.  
  
My name is Jake Cooper. And I am going to die.  
  
"Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then."  
  
A sudden thought, an image...A short, African-American girl wearing soiled clothes, wrapped in my human arms...  
  
and then...  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
